FP&A practitioners rely on raw materials, i.e. data, to conduct their work. In order to conduct their work a variety of data types should be utilized. There are three types of data that FP&A practitioners should utilize. The first type of data is financial numbers. Financial numbers must be utilized due to the goal of FP&A. The goal of FP&A is to assess whether wealth is or will be created based on decisions within businesses. These decisions can be assessed through elements within financial statements.  Income, stockholders’ equity, and cash are the elements most commonly used to assess wealth. These elements are expressed through financial numbers so it seems foolish to describe their importance but it is necessary to do so. This is due to the role of other data types.

In July 2017, I presented at the 2017 AICPA FP&A Conference in Las Vegas over AI (Artificial Intelligence) & machine Learning impact on FP&A. The session received great feedback from attendees and other speakers. So, I wanted to share an article summarizing the presentations main points. The goal of this article is to provide insights into the impact AI & machine learning will have on people, processes and technologies in FP&A. Hope you enjoy!

In the period from 2001 to 2006, the Retail division of Swiss Post transformed itself from a public service company into a business driven sales organization. Crucial drivers of change were, on the one hand, the adaptation of the steering systems up to the final implementation of a "Beyond Budgeting" philosophy and, on the other hand, a humanistic attitude of management and finance department against all employees. The success was amazing: The division succeeded in increasing the sales of new retail products from 0 to over 400 million CHF, optimizing the bottom line by more than 100 million CHF or more than 5 percentage points and becoming the first state-owned company in Switzerland to win the EFQM- Award for Business Excellence.

So, you are a C-suite executive, Vice President, Director, Manager, Senior, or Staff financial professional and you just had a high potential and high-performance team member or members move on to greener pastures. Or you aspire to be a high potential and high-performance employee and looking for success factors to take your game to the next level. Well, look no further than this post.  

I’d like to claim that I am not easily annoyed….but that would be untrue. And one of the things that are guaranteed to irritate me is glib statements from people who claim to be experts – particularly if it is part of an act to get people to buy something.

I recently had the honor of moderating a global webinar focused on how Finance leaders can leverage FP&A business partnering to impact performance across the enterprise. The featured speakers delivered nothing short of compelling experiences and insights.